Ben and Happy Jack (a working title)
by JohnnyMontagne
Summary: A story set in an America that has been ravaged into some sort of apocalypse which follows a paradoxical pair. Benjamin: a grizzled ex-raider, and Jack: a very large individual who appears never to speak. (Note: The listings did not allow a choice of "apocalypse" so i merely chose a category that seemed to match the closest: there are no characters from the Fallout franchise)


**Ben and Happy Jack **

(a working title)

"You ready," the smaller man asked the bigger one as he chambered a round into his rusty Ak-47; it wasn't really a question, they needed to get into that super market and they hadn't had anything to eat but the occasional irradiated squirrel for the past week.

The smaller, and older, of the two men was a grizzled ex-raider named Benjamin and if he had any friends they'd call him Ben. Ben was a balding man in his late 40's; he was lean and hardy, rippling with muscle formations and scars that only came from living a hard life and he was dressed for war, adorning himself in a crude, armor plated vest made up of old tires and scrap metal which was festooned with the ears and dried up tongues of his victims. Crouching next to him behind a rolled over Sedan was his partner, who was his exact opposite in almost every way.

The truth is Ben didn't know his partners real name because Happy Jack never talked; whether he couldn't or _wouldn't_ talk Ben didn't know, although he did have a very large ragged scar across his neck spanning from ear to ear which most likely meant that his partner had, at one time, his throat cut, most likely with something jagged, most likely a hunk of glass.

He called his partner Happy Jack for two reasons. The first reason was that on his military style body armor, a late model, looking almost futuristic, he wore a name tag that spelled out 'Jack' in capital bold font letters, and secondly above that name tag was a button of a smiley face with a bullet hole just above the center between its eyes. Truth be told Ben called him every name under the sun, even went a whole month calling him nothing but female names, his favorite being Lucy.

Jack was tall, easily taller than anyone Ben had ever met, and broad; the man…or boy (it was hard to tell sometimes) looked like he could flip a mountain upside down. He could have been handsome at some point in his short life…that is if his face didn't look like it was carved out of the side of a mountain, however surviving life in a post apocalyptic world had turned his face into a permanent scowl, which sometimes looked like a grin.

Jack had probably been in a combat unit at some point as well, the remnants of the gear he wore and the weapons he carried, two 1911 styled .45 caliber pistols and a military styled battle rifle with some type of low powered optic attached at the top, were a hint towards that particular thought which made Ben mentally examine his own gear which he had made, scavenged, or killed for, fixed and patched numerous times over with duct tape or wire, or welding jobs if when he could find a machine shop; it didn't matter they got the job done.

"You go first, I'll be right behind ya' gorgeous," Ben stated whilst peeking his head above the wrecked car at their target; an abandoned Store-Mart roughly sixty yards away.

Jack pushed his bulk off the side of the car and took off at a dead sprint, surprisingly agile for how massive he was; Ben barely heard the heavy boots of his comrade hit the pavement as he took off. Half a breath later Ben took off as well glancing side to side, scoping out the ruined parking lot for any patrols or snipers. By the time Ben joined his partner at the front door he was wheezing, smoking thirty cigs a day since he was fifteen would do that to a man, he made a mental note to find more cigs.

It was Ben's turn to go first and he did so quietly, easing his nimble frame through the broken glass of the long dead security door while Jack merely shoved it aside; so much for being quiet. The two of them crept into the modest sized store carefully, scanning the area for any movement or traps, cocking their ear towards the slightest sound. They turned a corner past a row of cash registers and froze; approximately thirty feet in front of them crouching in the middle of the isle like a man who's bowels needed loosening was a creeper, a shuffler, biter, a modern day zombie.

Creeper's had many names but this was Ben's favorite; these poor things had once been people, but once the bombs started dropping these poor souls had been stuck outside and had come in contact with a condition known as direct radiation which turned them into these ghoul like creatures within a few weeks; they were dangerous and violent retaining none of the sanity they once had, but if ever they were in a group you better run fast or kill yourself.

Ben looked up at Jack and pointed at the creeper, but Jack wasn't even looking at Ben as he started walking forward, withdrawing his huge knife that was harnessed horizontally at his lower back. Jack must have stepped on some shattered class from a ceiling tile because the creeper, quick as lightening, stood upright and turned to face the duet, snarling that high pitched sound that, every so often, would creep into Ben's dreams.

With a bolt of almost inhuman speed Jack shot forward grabbing the creeper with his huge hand wrapped around its mouth and lifted it off it's feet. The thing thrashed and kicked at Jack like an animal, clawing his abdomen with it's impossibly long toes and beating his tree branch –like arm with its own decaying limbs. Jack, seemingly unfazed, tightened his grip on the thing's face as it began to screech louder, its thrashings becoming more frantic, now trying to escape instead of just fleeing, Jack lifted it higher into the air like one would a trophy before closing his hand into a fist, crushing the creeper's skull, its, now lifeless, body dropping to the tile.

Jack exhaled quietly, re-sheathing his knife before turning around to look at Ben; it took him a moment to realize the Ben was no longer there. Jack walked back to the spot where Ben had been standing and examined the ground, noting that there were four sets of boot prints in the dust: his, Ben's and two others that appeared to have dragged Ben off, no meager feet, the dude was tough. Jack rose to his feet and followed the foot prints, shouldering the stock of his rifle, his lips set to a snarl.

Ben awoke in what looked to be the security room of the Shop-Mart, ancient and long dead monitors dominated one side of the room, a single incandescent bulb swung from its fraying cord above him, and off to his left was a machine that looked oddly out of place for it was something that a dentist might use. He could hear low muffled voices and, while it took awhile to clear his head of the grogginess, he could tell that the voices belong to a man and a woman, a fact which angered him more. He began to flex his muscles, testing the binds that tied his hands behind the rusted steel chair he was attached to, however when he made a sound the duet stopped talking and strode over to him.

The pair was a perfect match for each other. Both of them had been affected by radiation to some degree, evident by the boiling pustules on her, once, pretty face and the excess peeling skin that _dominated_ his face. Both wore rudimentary armor that had been assembled from what looked like cloth and leather that had been stapled to studded rubber slabs from what looked like a conveyor belt; there were no firearms, save for the few that they had took off Ben, however there was a nasty looking tire iron in one corner and on the first row of the monitors there was a baseball bat that had been fitted with nails that were commonly referred to as Jesus spikes,

Without saying a word the man went to the out of place machine next to him and began dragging it over to the side of the chair; Ben had time to notice there was a crude, wasn't everything in Post Apocalyptia crude and rusted these days, cork screw like drill attached to a small motor which was fitted to the machine via twine and wire. Ben, being the old, grizzled raider that he was, didn't give them the satisfaction of talking.

"We do not expect you to talk," the man said in a hoarse voice with a curious accent, like he had trouble speaking English, "that comes later. We simply expect you to suffer first."

"They always talk," the female said, her voice falling in between a moan and a whisper, "Ain't the first time we done it. People come in here looking for supplies and end up strapped to this chair and after a couple of hours, or days, they're practically begging us to _take_ whatever they've stashed! Its beautiful really," she began to laugh an annoying, high pitched squeal chortle combination that set Ben's teeth to itch; Ben must have made a gesture because the neck second the ugly broad was attacking his shins with a ball pin hammer, he began to laugh.

"You dumb whore," he exclaimed while still laughing, "You forgot to take my armor off? It's a mir-ee-cal that you've lived this long! This guy gotta tell you how to breathe too? Or does he just throw ya' a bone now and then," The next second there was an unbelievable and searing pain in his left shoulder; the optimist in him thanked the great Whoever that he was right handed.

The woman actually looked up before Ben looked over at his shoulder. He noticed a large meat hook had pierced the soft spot of his shoulder but did not exit out the back which meant it was hung up on the bone. Before he could analyze it further the strange man heaved on the rope that was attached to it and yanked him, and the chair he was attached to, clear off the floor about six inches; Ben began to scream as the woman dropped the small hammer, a look of either awe, fascination, or horror on her face.

The strange man began swinging the chair around, singing gleefully to himself, _country western_, Ben though, _I'm gonna die with the sounds of the redneck rap in my ears_, as the woman clapped her hands and stomped her boots to the beat; Ben started to scream as the strange man plucked his bat off the abandoned monitor and started twirling it.

The strange man wound up like he was fetching to hit a home run, however before he could swing he heard two soft yet distinct sounds, _fwip-fwip,_ and the rope broke, sending Ben crashing to the ground, landing on his right side.

"You big dummy," the girl exclaimed while looking at Benjamin, "I toldjer not to use rope, shoulda used that cable. The dang rope broke, cable don't," When her partner didn't answer back she looked up and, after a moment of horrific realization, she began to scream.

Her mate had what appeared to be a very large combat knife sticking out of where his Adam's apple had been; another knife, the one that had cut the rope no doubt, was stuck into the back wall. The strange man stood there for a second, clutching the fifteen inch knife, trying to pull it out, but in the next second, he collapsed to the ground, unconscious and bleeding out rapidly.

"Took ya long enough, you dumb-ugly mute," Ben exclaimed as the woman ran to her mate's side.

"Shuddup," she cried, offering a few weak kicks to Ben's head, "I dint kill 'im and I aint ugly." She began to cradle the strange man's head as she sobbed.

"I weren't talkin to you, princess," Ben said, chuckling softly. The woman looked at him quizzically, was still looking at him as a giant hand clamped to the back of her head, picking her clear off her feet before slamming her into the wall of monitors and dropping her to the ground, ruining her already ruined face.

Jack had crept into the room silently, the fact that he could be so silent for how huge he was would always make Ben a little uneasy, and had managed to throw not one, but two knives quickly and accurately without even being seen. He crouched next to his partner, loosening the binds and examining his shoulder wound; Ben slapped his hand away.

"Forget me and go get her you dumb-ape," Ben gasped as he nodded his head to the woman who was frantically trying to crawl away; Jack looked over his shoulder at her and stood up, walking slowly behind her.

He watched her crawl for about fifteen feet before he realized what she was crawling towards and became annoyed. She was trying to reach an old CB radio, presumably to call her other buddies to come save her. Jack grabbed her by the ankle and drug her backwards a few feet just before her fingers touched the speaking end, her cries of 'no' sounding desperate and accepting; then Jack set to work,

He brought his steel heeled boot down on the back of her legs, two wet crunches followed up a high pitched squeal that made Jack's ears hurt. He kneeled on her back, grabbing her hair and pulling it back so she could see Ben, her would be victim, resting against the wall; Jack also looked at his partner as if asking what he should do.

"Do whatever ya want, if you let her go though I guarantee we gonna be lookin' over our shoulder for the next month," he said.

"I'll let you go," the woman screamed, her voice more annoying than the fact that she had wet herself. Her next sentence was cut off by the fact that she had fingers as large as bolts in her mouth.

Jack sat on her lower back, no doubt crushing the girl, as he began to pull her head back slowly and when he finally thought her screams could get no louder he jerked hard, breaking the girls neck, crushing her wind pipe, her head now resting in between her shoulder blades; she was dead.

Ben looked at Happy Jack with mild disgust, "You were touched by your uncle in a previous life weren't ya," he jibbed while nodding at the woman he was previously sitting on, "or you had a kiddy garden teacher that got a bit too handsy, aye?" He got up, rubbing his shoulder as he reached into his fanny pack and pulled out a tampon, jabbing it into the shoulder wound and removed the plastic applicator; _good for somethin',_ he thought as he tried rotating his shoulder.

Jack noticed a wooden crate at the back of the room, ignoring the class cooler that appeared to be full of food, which Ben did not ignore; opening the crate turned out to be disappointing. Inside the crate, thought to be full of ammo and weaponry, was a single mask that appeared to be made of a tough fiber glass lined with steel. The mask was black with only two holes covered in a steel mesh for eyes; someone had painted a demon like smile on it and Jack examined it for traps before putting it on. The mask covered the top of his head, his ears, and under his chin…like a modified hockey mask; he turned around and looked at Ben, making a clawing motion and wiggling his fingers at him.

"Yeah, yeah we get it," Ben said while stuffing his face with what looked like canned beets, "the big scary giant found a scary mask oooh, now cut the playing and help me load this grub cuz we be eatin' well tonight!" Jack began to help is partner, but did not remove the mask; Ben would never admit it but this new image was a bit unnerving.

They loaded up a discarded backpack with what goods would fit in it and not spoil, pausing only to pull the knife out of his would-be captor's neck and clean it off before they walked out of that store, however they didn't get very far.

They were greeted by five barrels belonging to five identical M4 assault rifles held by five _not_ identical individuals. The first one was a black man of reasonable size with a black bushy beard and arms the size of rail road ties. The second was a woman, or what Ben guessed was a because her face was concealed with an Arab rag; she was slender, obviously athletic, also black. The third person was an old man who was quite portly and was smoking what appeared to be an old English pipe; he wore a monacle. The fourth was a man of average height and build with longer brown hair slicked back with what looked like engine oil and wore an eye patch; apparently this group had trouble seeing. The final person was a kid that had a nervous expression on his face; if he was any older than fifteen Ben would eat a bullet, should've already done it to be this humiliated twice in one day. _Step one_, he thought, _Identify the leader_.

"Well now what," Ben said sarcastically as he slowly raised his hands and directing his words towards the unknown woman, "You gonna shoot us baby sister? If you do, you better kill Happy Jack first, its his time of the month and we don't got no Midol," he laughed wheezily. He eyeballed the group; none of them moved or even looked at each other which was when Jack made his move.

Jack took one heavy step forward; Ben swore he could feel the earth shift slightly from its path on its own ecliptic when he did. The woman stepped forward and jammed the barrel of her rifle onto one of the eye holes of the mask; Jack did not move as Ben began laughing.

"Well now we see who's in charge 'round here," Ben laughed loudly, pulling his final cigarette out of its crushed package and lighting it with a golden Zippo; Jack glared at the woman angrily through the mask as she shook softly.

"Easy big guy," the woman said as she held up the hand not on the trigger; she had a slight southern accent. "We just wanna ask you a few questions. No need to get riled up."

"Good luck, lil' mama," Ben said, casually smoking, "tellin' that guy not to get riled up with a gun in his face is a lot like tellin' a rat not to eat ya,"; rats were gigantic mutated bear's that apparently someone found funny to name them after a small harmless rodent.

"Tell your man to back down _jefe_," the portly man said in what sounded like an English accent.

"He ain't my man, pops, an' like I said, he don't listen to me."

"All we want to do is talk," the black man said which was when Jack's head quickly snapped sideways as a large caliber round snapped into the cracked pavement between the two groups.

At the corner of the store, roughly a hundred yards or so, according to Ben's rough estimate, a group of bandits appeared out of nowhere. Roughly twenty in number, some began to sprint at the impromptu meeting while others were firing at them; Jack raised his rifle and began snapping off rounds, not really aiming, but rather just trying to suppress the group while Ben took off at a dead sprint to the opposite corner of the building and the group of strangers followed him; the formidable black male stayed behind to help Jack and began firing.

Jack reached into a drop pouch, a simple leather bag attached to his belt, and took out what could best be described as a grenade: a mason jar filled with black powder, ball bearings, and packed with cotton with a rudimentary short fuse sticking out of the lid; he lit the fuse, appeared to wait a moment, then arched it high into the air in the direction of their assailants.

The man next to him appeared not to notice so Happy Jack grabbed the back of his combat vest and began running, yanking the burly man off his feet as he did. After a few yards the man righted himself and began running on his own power; behind them the sound of a loud _whump _mixed with various whizzing sounds preceded the sounds of cries of agony. Jack looked over his shoulder as he was running to see if they were being followed…they were not, but that man he had been dragging was face down in the dirt and bleeding.

Annoyed, Jack ran back to the man and grabbed him, once again, by the back of his vest and dragged him to where the others were waiting. Jack propped the man against the wall and was about to examine him when the black female shoved him away and took over.

"She's our doctor," the eye patched man said with a mild southern accent, "of sorts. Pediatrics before the bombs fell, but she went through med school and could probably do heart surgery if push came to shove."

"If either of us had one," Ben replied while looking at the setting sun.

"Seems to be about that time chaps. What say we take refuge in the loading bay for the night and I'll cook us a feast…seeing as we are with friends and all," the portly Brit said.

"Who said anything about friends! A minute ago you had rifles aimed at us, now we're friends?!" Ben began spouting off obscenities, but when Jack rested his massive hand on Ben's shoulder he stopped.

"Fine," he said. "You five go set up camp and me and Jack will scav the area," and without another word he took off and Jack followed. It was an hour past sunset when the duo made it back to the docking bay. Off of the dead group of raiders they pulled only a few mags worth of ammo, and two packs of cigs and thanks the great Whoever for that; everything else had been burnt, charred, or beyond useless so they kept the ammo for themselves.

The woman checked the black man's bandages on his shoulder before she spoke.

"So what are your names," she said to the pair.

"My name is Go and his name is To Hell," Ben said grumpily, gingerly rubbing his own wound. "What're yours?" The woman shot him an annoyed look before speaking.

"My name is Sasha, and the man your friend helped is my brother Tyrone," she said.

"The name my father fitted me with many years ago was Trent," the portly old Brit said. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"I'm Paul," the eye patched southerner continued. "I, uh, used to lead another group a few years ago until the Army assimilated them," he said this last part…_carefully_.

"Diego Raul Martinez." It was the boy's turn to speak, "Sasha and Mr. Tyrone were my neighbors and…" He didn't finish.

After a long and uncomfortable pause Jack nudged Ben, who gave an exasperated sigh.

"I'm Ben," he began as Sasha started to scoop what looked like stew into seven steel bowls. "The giant next to me I call Happy Jack; I call him that on account of he don't speak. Whether he can't or won't I dunno; all I know is he ain't said one word in the five years I've known him.

"Does he always wear the mask," Trent asked as he began passing around the bowls. "Far be it from me to judge a man, however it is a little unnerving."

"Nah, he just found that a few minutes before we met ya'll; as if he needed something else to make him more scary, right?"

"How did you two meet up?"

Ben appeared to hesitate a bit before answering and appearing to look vulnerable; Jack merely looked into the fire

"I was with a group of raiders for over 15 months," he began as he popped a cigarette into his mouth and lit it. "We was all from the same neighborhood before the bombs fell, and after they fell it only made sense to stick together. At first we survived with the gear we managed to pile together from our houses, but when that ran out we found that the easiest way to get more gear and supplies was to take what we wanted from who we wanted.

"At first we would just rob people with the threat of violence; sometimes that's more affective, aye? After awhile we would come into contact with tougher and tougher groups, but we were tough, ourselves as well, so we ended up just killing a group we wanted" He paused, taking another drag off his smoke, his hand shaking slightly.

"I've killed old men, women, children, military groups, gangbangers, man you name it we killed it. I used to be a banker before all this, you believe that? Anyway this one day we were scavenging this sewer complex; we had good intel that there was a group of fifteen to twenty non combatants with a good supply of food. We had been tweakin' out on PCP for a few days so we felt pretty invincible, _were_ invincible; in all the raids we ever were in we never lost a man.

"We entered through a large culvert and, according to this map we had, we had about an hour walk to find the group. Long story short we were down there for three hours before we realized that the map was wrong. We started out with a group of 30 people , but then we noticed that we were down to seven; 23 of our guys had been picked off without us even hearing it so we started running, which is when my chest met Happy Jack's sledge hammer.

"If I had been less hopped up or hadn't have passed out, or hadn't been wearing a steel chest plate I might've died. When I woke up, Jack had twenty-nine bodies in a pile and was throwing mine on top; from what I could see everyone had their heads crushed or smashed off all together. He started pouring gas on the pile which was when I reached out to him; honestly I was just hoping he'd kill me before lighting me on fire, but all he did was pull me off the pile and give me a steak and we've been together ever since, damned if I know why."

At this point Tyrone sat up and began to talk. He spoke in a somber tone, gingerly prodding his stew with a bent fork.

"Sasha was home from her university and was spending the weekend with me before heading up state to go see our parents," He paused momentarily, looking outside while scratching his beard. "Thirty-seven years old and I ain't ever had a wife…"

"Ain't all they cracked up to be," Ben lighting another cigarette, pushing his empty bowl to the side.

"So what happens tomorrow," Diego said, clutching his knees and gazing into the fire. "Are we joining forces or something? I mean, we could use the muscle."

"We ain't really got a plan, kid. Happy Jack seems to be wanting to head into the city for some reason, even though its pretty bad there. We were in the outskirts of the West End last summer and Happy Jack here had to wrestle a few muties; looked like they were building a city there or something."

"What are muties," Sasha asked, seemingly alarmed.

"If I understand the man correctly," Paul spoke up this time, his button up shirt wrinkled and stained from days of wear, "A mutie is a person that's been exposed to so much radiation that they literally begin to mutate. Back in my old community we had, unknowingly, set up our town in an abandoned town…which was abandoned because, according to documents and audio tapes we found in what we assumed was the old mayors office the muties would come into the town regularly and kidnap people, dragging them off to God knows where.

"They're huge. Easily taller than Jack over there; they're deformed and oddly proportioned, often having over sized limbs and odd growths. The worst one I saw was about ten feet tall with one gigantic arm with an eye protruding from its shoulder and foot long claws on its hand; took an RPG rocket to kill it, and then we burnt what was left…" He trailed off, resting back on his body armor which was propped against his rucksack."

"We're leavin at first light, if you wanna join us ya can, otherwise we'll see ya around."

"We won't be joining you," Sasha said cooly; she was obviously the voice of this group. "Tyrone is hurt, Diego is just a kid, and the old man's heart couldn't take that stress."

"Time to find a pair of balls baby sister; in this day an' age there ain't no room for weak. There ain't no room for compassion. You look out for yourself and if ya lucky you find someone who wants to look out for themselves but wants a lil company doin it."

"You can't live life that way anymore," Sasha said with a look of concern on her face. "In this life, especially now, you _need_ people; what a lonely life it is otherwise."

Ben seemed genuinely hurt by this comment; he got to his feet, grabbed his rifle and walked out of the loading bay, "Get outta here man," he said at no one in particular and shambled off. Diego went to go after him but Jack stopped him, putting one massive hand against the slim boy's chest and pushing him back softly then stretched out his massive limbs, put his hands behind his head and appeared to fall asleep; the rest of the group followed suit.

When morning came the two groups packed up their belongings and parted ways with a few soft goodbyes that acquaintances often shared; it was as simple and indifferent as that, Ben and Jack left the store's loading bay and headed east into the open wasteland towards the direction of the city. Around midday the day after they departed they saw the city; its decrepit towers poking up in the distance like some rusted art; a single lane of train tracks headed in the direction of the city so they followed them.

They were no more than a hundred yards away from the outlying shacks and single story buildings when a whizz flew by Jack's head; Jack reacted immediately by jumping sideways for cover while Ben opened up with his AK-47. Ben sprinted forward, still firing in the direction of the shooter while Jack kept him cover with his rifle from a distance; when he couldn't see Ben anymore he ran forward…only to see Ben sprinting back at him withhis rifle dangling from its strap.

"What're you doin dumbass run run run," Ben practically screamed.

Jack was confused for a bit and stopped moving…which was when a mutie tore through the wooden structure behind Ben and ran at him full throttle. Jack didn't think he merely began squeezing the trigger of his rifle until Ben caught up to him; when he did Jack merely stopped him from running and waited for the mutant to catch up to him.

The mutie was roughly the size of a man, but proportioned wrong. It had no skin on it and appeared to be oozing a thick, pink, and viscous fluid from every pore on its body. Its arms stretched down to its knees while the hooked talons that were once finger nails scraped against the ground. It was naked and sexless, its face was adorned with hundreds of tiny sharp teeth, and its lidless eyes were huge and bulging; its massive weight practically shook the ground with each of its steps.

The thing was snarling as it charged, Ben was struggling against Jack's grip, and Jack, playing the part of a matador, waited till the last possible second before juking to the right, and sprinting in the direction it had just came from: towards the city. Ben righted himself and kept pace with Jack, taking a look over his shoulder just to see the thing make a slow and clumsy 180 degree turn, letting out a new kind of snarl as it did; like it was calling something.

"Run faster Big Guy," Ben panted, _shoulda quit smoking years ago, _he thought.

Jack started running faster, passing ancient alleyways and rusted road signs, heading deeper into the city, and still following the train tracks. Ben shot another look over his shoulder only to see five more muties, each one larger than the previous one (the last one reaching over ten feet tall), which made him run faster. From the corners of their eyes the duo noticed more muties pouring out of the various nooks and rubble piles that littered the road; Ben and Jack were in trouble and more so now that the road was dead ending and bottle-necking them into a complex of buildings shaped like a U.

Jack plucked a grenade from his drop pouch, this one in a steel canister and having an impact detonation, and stopped running only long enough to whip the cup sized grenade at the nearest of twenty muties; the effect was immediate and satisfying. It hit the mutie center in the chest and exploding with a burst of bright blue sparks, sending wood screws and cork screws flying back at the group of muties. The mutant which suffered the direct hit was cut in half, but that was all; the others, realizing that the duo could run no farther, began advancing on them slowly, flexing their various claws and snapping their jaws.

Jack un-shouldered his rifle, putting the lighted cross hairs of the optic on the nearest mutie and, acting not reacting, squeezed off a round, obliterating his head and getting off nine more shots before he needed to reload; he didn't notice when Ben had started firing. Jack took out one of his pistols and squeezed off its eight round capacity, doing the same with its twin when the first one ran dry; the horde still advanced, sounding angry yet in no hurry.

When Jack's final pistol ran out of ammo he drew his gigantic knife from its sheath and waited; Ben had also run out of ammo, but only had his fists donning a pair of studded gloves.

"Come on," Ben said. "Come on, finish it. COME ON YOU BASTARDS! YOU WANT ME COME GET ME!"

His voice broke on hysteria as he began to pound his chest; the horde took that as a sign to strike, which is, coincidentally, when all hell broke loose. Jack got his hand around the throat of the nearest mutie, driving his knife into the things head just in time to kick the second nearest one. Ben uppercut the one that came after him and punched the next one in the throat so hard it broke the thing's neck; Jack pulled the knife out of the first one's head and was just about to crush the skull of a third one when another one leapt out of nowhere and drug its six inch claws across his arm and gashing it wide open.

Jack fell to the ground and stabbed the mutie that clawed him in the foot while delivering a massive kick to the next one that sprang at him which was when bullets started ripping through the air and accurately hitting their marks amongst the muties. Ben hit the ground and covered his head while the muties ran off only to be mowed down seconds later; Jack pulled his knife out of the last ones foot, but continued stabbing the mutie about the throat and face, snarling as he did until several pairs of hands pulled him off and pinned him to the ground; Jack managed to slug one in the jaw, dislocating it, before a he saw a rifle butt being brought down and then he knew no more.

(To Be Continued)


End file.
